Discussion ThatOneBoss / KingdomHearts

I'm almost willing to make an exception to the "no Bonus Bosses" rule for the Mysterious Figure, on account of him being ridiculously unfair even when you compare him to other bonus bosses. Here's what my entry would be:

• The Mysterious Figure deserves a mention even though he breaks the "No Bonus Bosses" rule, simply because of how unfair he is even compared to other bonus bosses. His attacks are numerous, varied, fast, and have little-to-no telegraphing. He can heal himself with Restore Barrier or by rewinding time (and his revenge value is random, so he could do this any time you hit him, rather than after too many hits like KH2's bosses). He can turn invisible to screw up your lock-on. He can create clones of himself to drown you in attacks. He can blow away your command deck, forcing you to scramble to recover your healing spells. He'll go easy on you while his projectile traps lay on the Beam Spam... unless you hit him even once, and then it's fair game. His Collision Magnet spell (affectionately known as the "Rape Rope") homes in, lingers, is inescapable if it hits, and stunlocks you into his next hit, making Second Chance/Once More useless. Oh, and once you get him to low health, he spams Mega Flare and Meteor endlessly. To this day the general strategy against him is usually "spam your dodge move, spam Thunder Surge when you can, and hope you're not Terra," and he has the dubious honor of being the first Kingdom Hearts boss to ever be nerfed by a Final Mix rerelease (so that the new bosses wouldn't look too easy by comparison).

I ended up removing the Infernal Engine. It may seem like he belongs here, but by that point you should be able to block and dodge roll. It's just that simple. Unless you haven't been bringing magic, in that case that's still just a tactical error on the player rather than bad design on the boss.

I removed these two examples, because they're both bonus bosses.

• Mimic Master. More HP than the final boss, has a blinding laser attack that he uses very often, (and being blind also takes away your Shotlock!) and when he gets low on health, he creates FIFTEEN clones of you that know every command you do, and they also cast Blackout a lot (again with the blinding!). And you don't fight them all at once; it's 2 at a time.
• Iron Imprisoner IV. The Iron Imprisoner gets steadily more and more difficult through the first three forms. The third form alone is hard enough, to the point where you can only hope to beat him using shotlocks. The first time you fight this form, it is fairly manageable, but you have to fight him again in order to fight the fourth form, and the second time he's been buffed the hell up. And as for IV himself... His new attacks aren't too bad, but his hammer combo has become utterly devastating, and his fire spin lasts forever. If you slip up and hit square intending to dodge and end up accidentally using your counter, then your combo survival ability gets broken, it WILL be deadly. And then you have to start the arena match over again, which includes several rounds of normal enemies buffed up to hell, not to mention the third form again. Also, if you want to complete the journal, you'll have to do this with all three characters.